‘Tis better to give, students know

Newport Harbor High School students have donated enough food to feed hundreds of families, all in hopes of being rewarded with a couple slices of pizza.

“Food is a great motivator for the students,” Activities Director April Helliwell said.

Students used to be able to earn community service hours, needed for graduation, by bringing in food during holiday food drives. The district has since disallowed the practice, so the school’s Associated Student Body (ASB) came up with a new way to entice students to bring in food.

They settled on a perennial form of bait for adolescents: junk food.

The homeroom class with the top quantity of donations would receive a pizza party; second place would earn a cookie party.

“It’s kind of sad that the students needed an incentive to bring cans, but at least it got them focused on doing an act of good will,” said ASB President Ed Kehoe, 17.

Teacher Barbara Barry said she uses Thanksgiving and holiday drives to emphasize the disparity between “haves” and “have-nots.”

“I think it’s important for the kids to understand that there are needs out there in the community,” Barry said. “I talk to them beforehand about what they have, and ask how much their video games, jeans, cell phones and Starbucks cost. Then I ask how much they think they can use to help others. I have a couple kids go buy the presents or groceries, and then they come back and show the class what they bought. It helps everyone feel like they’re part of the process.”

This week, students brought canned goods and other food products in Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale’s bags, grocery bags and banana cartons. They piled them up Friday, sorted by homeroom class.

Donated food products ranged from packages of organic brown rice pasta to tins of Spam.

The smallest class contribution was a lonely little Starbucks bag containing two cans of corn and a box of macaroni and cheese. The largest piles would have filled several SUV trunks, with hundreds of soup and vegetable cans and bulky cartons of Top Ramen.

Some students brought out food on a wheeled cart, which they thought would give their pile more prominence; they artfully re-stacked the products on it to make their piles appear taller.

After the smaller piles were taken away, three piles of similar dimensions remained. Helliwell asked the ASB students to take the products out of their bags and boxes for a clearer comparison.

Some students looked through the cans with interest and were surprised at all of the available varieties of canned fruits and vegetables.

“Hey, we never have canned food at my house,” one student told his friends, while he sorted cans. “Is that a bad thing? My mom always cooks.”

One pile was judged to be smaller than the others, so it was declared the second-place winner, earning that class’ students a cookie party.

The remaining two piles, both compiled by science classes, were too close in size to be judged without conducting a detailed count. Both classes were named co-winners, meaning pizza parties.

Malia Azurin, 16, said her teacher inspired the class.

“He really encouraged us to help out,” she said. “It’s fun having our school do all this to help families.”

She said the school also participates in an Adopt-A-Family program during the holiday season. Her own family benefited from such generosity in the past, Malia said, so it was a pleasure for her to pay it forward.

“I just remember being so excited on Christmas, seeing all this stuff we were given,” she said. “I wanted to be able to do that for someone else.”